


we take our daily breath and thank our unlucky stars

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: (sort of), ADWD spoilers, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Second Person, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:46:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>where Theon ends up at the Wall and Jon doesn't meet any of his expectations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we take our daily breath and thank our unlucky stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outboxed (fallencrest)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [За каждый новый вздох благодаришь свою звезду](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023440) by [wakeupinlondon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakeupinlondon/pseuds/wakeupinlondon)



> written for the last five acts round; the prompts were h/c, violence/absence of violence dichotomy and bed sharing. The title is from Alkaline Trio, I don't own anything, this is all speculation. (Probably wishful.)

Jon Snow is different.

 _At least he’s whole_ , you think. He looks older, of course he does, but his hair is dark and his hands have ten fingers, and his teeth are all there. More than you can say for yourself.

When he takes a look at you, for a moment you’re sure that he won’t stay true to whichever agreement there is between him, Stannis and your sister (she somehow managed to have your life spared while discussing it – you wish you had had the time to thank her, at least) and that he’s going to have your head, and you wouldn’t even try to fight it.

But then he tells one of his men to find you a room ( _there should be plenty to choose from_ , he adds almost bitterly, and you almost wince at his tone – Jon Snow never was the most cheerful person, but he never sounded that dejected) and a change of clothes.

\--

You dress in black clothes and they’re large on you. Not overtly, whoever went searching for them put an effort in at least picking a size close to yours, but it wasn’t enough. He’s a young man with large ears who looks half-surprised and half-embarrassed when you thank him five times. He doesn’t understand it – not that he should.

You expect Jon to come find you. He can’t be fine with this arrangement, not after what you did, and maybe he won’t have your head but there are a lot of different ways he could take revenge for his family, and you wouldn’t stop him.

He doesn’t come. The same young man who found the clothes brings you some food that evening and apologizes for having to lock the door to your room. You start crying and you don’t explain him that it’s because you couldn’t have received better news.

The bed would be uncomfortable to anyone, but for someone who hasn’t slept on a bed in months things change.

You don’t sleep well, you don’t, but whenever you wake up you’re alone and the door is locked and you have clean clothes. No ground, no filth, no dogs, no Ramsay Bolton, just nothing, and you can’t believe that this can last.

\--

Jon Snow does eventually come. Three days later.

You look at the ground and call him _my lord_ and since you’re looking at the ground you don’t see that he has the eyes of someone who feels sick.

You think you’re ready for whatever he has in store for you. Nothing could be worse than what you just left behind and you’re really not afraid to die. Better him than anyone else – at least, if he’s like his father, he’ll make it quick.

“I don’t want your head,” he says, and he sounds tired. “And you can look at me, you know.”

You raise your head just because he asked, and he also seems as tired as he sounds. He’s standing next to the door, a few steps from you – he isn’t taking them.

“What – what does my lord want then?”

“Nothing,” he answers, and you know that your eyes are widening in disbelief. He can’t mean it.

“I know that you never killed my brothers,” he sighs. You don’t ask how he learned that. “Your squire saw them running from the crypts after Winterfell was set on fire, or so I’m told. And the more I look at you the more I think that for all I wished I could take your head myself, I really couldn’t if I tried. And if doing it wouldn’t mean breaking my word.”

“There are other ways to take revenge on someone,” you whisper, and you know you shouldn’t be asking him to do it, but you can’t find it in yourself to think differently.

“Good gods.” He sounds like he’s going to be sick. “I told you. I plan on doing nothing, Theon.”

And then he stands up and leaves.

Your hands shake for the next hour or so.

You don’t get it.

\--

He comes every day.

Every time, you expect him to – to do something. Punch you in the face, kick you against a wall, hurt you someway because it’s what he should be doing and nothing less than what you deserve and you’d barely feel it.

Instead he just sits there looking at you as if he’ll have some question answered if he does it long enough, and then he leaves. He never touches you once. You don’t know if you should be relieved or worried.

Every time he locks the door behind him. You know you’re no better than a hostage, again, but this time it seems like the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

\--

You hear people talking in the room next to yours – the wall is thin. Sometimes they talk about Jon. They say that he should be dead, that half of the Night’s Watch stabbed him in the back, that no one knows how he survived it. And no one is ever going to question his commanding again. You feel like vomiting (you know enough about the Red Wedding, you weren’t spared the details when you were still at the Dreadfort) but you don’t, because when you heard about Robb’s death you did and no one let you wash your clothes after, and you won’t do that now.

\--

“Why?” you ask him one day, not much later. You don’t know where you found it in yourself to do it – maybe it’s the same place that made you jump with Jeyne rather than go back.

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing _nothing_? I was the reason Robb lost the war, I was the one who forced your brothers to flee, I – why aren’t you?”

Jon sighs, stands up, moves closer to you. “If you had known that taking Winterfell would have lost him the war _that_ way, would you have done it?”

“No,” you answer. You know you wouldn’t have.

“I’m not doing anything because I like to think that I knew my brother, and I think that he would have done the same. He’d have killed you first thing after capturing you, and he wouldn’t have done that easily, but if he saw you right now, I think he couldn’t bring himself to. And for what concerns me, I’ve seen enough heads rolling to last me for my entire life.”

“But – you hated me. You’d have all the reasons. And he’d have had them, too, and – you can’t – you can’t just –”

“I think you’re doing a good job of punishing yourself on your own,” Jon replies, and you know you shouldn’t feel grateful, you know that your first instinct shouldn’t be throwing yourself at this feet and beg him to do anything he wants – you can’t even remember why you ever disliked him so much _before_ , but you force yourself to stay still.

And then you realize what he has just said ( _Robb couldn’t bring himself to_ ) and you know that you’re crying, and you don’t even try to stop yourself. It’s not as if you have much dignity to spare.

“I should have died with him,” you know you say at some point, and you don’t know that Jon is right in front of you until a shadow falls over your hands.

You hold your breath as he reaches out with a hand covered in burn scars and wipes salt from the side of your face with its back.

“That’s what I tell myself every day,” he says quietly, and then he leaves and locks the door and you don’t know why he’d ever do that but just thinking about how nice it had felt makes you start crying all over again.

\--

That night you wake up screaming because someone’s shaking you, hands on both of your shoulders, and for a moment you think _it was all a dream and I never left at all,_ but then you see that it’s Jon and that you’re still at the Wall, and he’s wearing just breeches and a half-open shirt.

His entire chest is covered in scars. As if more than one person stabbed him with a knife all over.

 _We do have something in common after all_ , you think, even if your chest is covered in scars of an entirely different kind and shape. You almost want to laugh, but you don’t.

“You woke up the entire hallway,” Jon says, keeping his hands on your shoulders. “I could hear you from the tower.”

“I’m sorry,” you stammer, closing your eyes, knowing that something has to be coming. A blow, a slap, maybe he’ll shove you off the bed and push you on your knees and he’ll ask you your name and if you answer wrong –

Jon leaves your shoulders as if they burn. You hadn’t realized that you were speaking aloud.

“Good gods,” he whispers. “Who do you think I am?”

“I don’t – I didn’t – I can do better, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –”

“Stop,” Jon interrupts you, and you do at once, thankful that he phrased it as an order, because that’s something you know. He moves away and goes to the door, sends away whoever was outside it and then locks it.

Then he comes back. You know you look like a mess, more than usual – you can feel tears all over your face and you’re shaking all over, and he’s looking at you as if he hasn’t seen anything as pitiful in his life, and he probably hasn’t.

“If six months ago someone told me that I’d do what I’m about to do, I’d have thought them mad,” Jon says, more to himself than to you, and you don’t understand what he means because that makes no sense, and then he looks straight at you again.

“Move,” he tells you, eyeing the bed, and you do, and he climbs up on it and –

He drags the covers up and puts an arm around your frame and the bed isn’t big, so it means that your head is on his shoulder, and his other hand goes behind your neck and he doesn’t – he stays like that. It makes no sense, it makes no fucking sense, he shouldn’t be touching you like this, he shouldn’t even want to, he should –

“Whatever you think I am going to do, I am not,” Jon says. You notice just now that neither of his hands is below your waist, and his legs aren’t touching yours.

“You could,” you whisper. “If you wanted.” You don’t even know how you should pay him back otherwise, and Jon Snow was always his father’s son and he couldn’t ever be as bad as –

“Believe me, that’s not why I’m doing this. And I don’t think you want me to.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Let’s just pretend you never said that. And go to sleep.”

You suppose you can do it – it’s not too hard of a request. You don’t really believe that nothing is going to happen, but it’s not as if you have a choice either way.

You don’t wake up screaming again.

\--

The next morning, he’s still there. His arm is still above your waist. His hand is still at your neck. Your head is still against his shoulder. You both have clothes on. You blink twice, slowly realizing that he didn’t lie and that you slept straight until morning. You aren’t really thinking as you reach out for the laces of his breeches with your left hand – if anything, you’d have done it with the right if you had been thinking about it.

You hadn’t realized that he was awake.

His fingers wrap around your wrist before you can even touch the laces.

“ _Don’t_ do it.”

You move your hand back to your side. “What do you want then?” you ask, dejected.

“I don’t want anything. And you don’t have to – pay me back. Or whatever you think that you’re doing.”

“That’s – you must want something.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” he replies, and he sounds almost – kind? Sad? You don’t even know anymore. He sighs and moves away, looks down at you, seems to debate it for a second before he grabs the blanket and pushes it back so that it’s covering you again. You want to cry at the gesture, you know you don’t deserve it, and you fight the temptation to throw yourself off the bed and at his knees all over again – if he doesn’t want it you shouldn’t risk making him angry. He’s bound to lose his temper at some point.

“Get some rest,” he says, and then he leaves and locks the door again, and you cry tears of relief into the pillow.

\--

You spend half of the day in bed – you’re too exhausted by what went on during the night to even bother getting out of it if you don’t have to.

You don’t expect Jon to come back. You don’t expect him to get under the covers again. This time he’s behind you, and he puts an arm around you again but he leaves space between the two of you.

“What are you doing?” you ask miserably. Maybe he finally decided to –

“It’s a long story. And I still don’t want anything from you. Go to sleep.”

(You don’t know that during the previous night he found out that he sleeps better next to someone else, and you don’t know that while he still trusts his close friends, he couldn’t ask any of them. You don’t know that he hasn’t slept well or much at all since he came back from the dead. You will at some point, but not now.)

“My lord –”

“I liked it better when you called me bastard,” Jon mutters, and you don’t even know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. You hope he understands that it’s not just about that. It’s about everything.

“I know,” Jon replies, his forehead pressing against the back of your head. You press yourself a bit closer to him, wondering what are you even trying to prove yourself.

He keeps his hold loose, and you know you believe him.

End.


End file.
